The Hungering Soul
by Shameless Fox
Summary: Who knows what lies beneath the snows. What...creature lies beneath it. Imprisoned by ice, and sustained by magic, is this creature friend, or foe...
1. Chapter 1: The Legend

There are legends that speak of a being. Some would call it a guardian, others – a curse. No one knows who – or what – it truly is. Some say that it was created by renegade mages seeking a champion to rally behind, others say that it had no beginning, for there are none alive that remember its creation. 

It is used as an excuse by parents to stop their sons and daughters riding of for the colleges and guilds of magic. 

It is clad in the darkest of armour, wielding a sword of blackest night. 

Its armour is freezing to the touch, which the legends state allows it to walk across water. 

It sleeps in ice, feeds on magic, and the minds of mages is its playground. 

The ice it sleeps in is it's prison. 

The ice wraiths, its wardens. 

Should this unnatural creature walk the lands of Tamriel again, there will be no safe place for the practitioners of magic. 

The lands of Skyrim, magical items scattered throughout its mountain ranges, would be irresistible to this dark soul. 

Some would call it a guardian, others – a curse.


	2. Chapter 2: Unleashed

_Several weeks before the Helgen incident…_

The Altmer, Calia Elsinal, surveyed the progress of her expedition. It was slow going. She shouldn't have been surprised considering that, with the exception of herself, the expedition was comprised of lower races. Mainly Dunmer, with some Imperials and Orsimer for the heavy lifting. None of those shifty Khajiit, or slimy Argonians, and she would bet her entire estate on the Summerset Isles that she wouldn't find a Nord willing to help an Altmer.

As she watched the expedition chip away at the ice and stone, she reflected on why she had assembled this rabble or races. Some mages find themselves drawn towards magical items or areas, and Calia was one such mage. However, even though her people considered themselves above the other races, they were still careful about some of their operations in Skyrim. It wouldn't do to rile up the local Nords, not since the Thalmor's intentions were to try and get them to see reason that should have been obvious to all. Enemies that are even more angry, may be more predictable, but would also be more difficult to deal with. And digging through age old Nord burial sites would definitely rile them up. So Calia had to do this the difficult way. Relying on the inferior, but needed, skills of these lesser races.

She was suddenly jolted out of her thinking when a shout came from one of the corridors.

"We've found something!", came the heavy tones of an Orsimer.

Calia still had her eyes closed when she felt a presence nearby.

"My lady…"

She opened her eyes and shot a look that would have made a sabre cat rethink its situation, at the idiot Dunmer who had approached her.

"I _heard _the half-wit. Did you think you had heard something I hadn't?", Calia said. To think this ash vermin would insinuate such a thing was beyond her. _No, she thought to herself, it wasn't beyond her. _She, and the rest of her kind, were well aware of what the lesser races thought of them. They would take every opportunity to show up the Altmer.

"No, my lady. I just thought…"

"I don't pay you to think. I think, you dig," Calia restrained herself from pointing out that it was because she was just clearly better at it then him.

"Of course, my lady. My mistake," the Dunmer replied. _You don't pay us at all, dirty N'wah. We don't have a choice._

She stalked towards the entrance to the corridor from where the Orsimer had shouted. From his reaction when she rounded the corner, he had not expected her to come at once. _Idiot Orc. Of course she would come, there was some sort of magical object here, so Calia wouldn't rely on others to relay information to her. _

"What have you found?" Calia asked in a tone of authority.

"A doorway. But," he hurriedly said, realising he should have started the sentence differently, "It's sealed over with some kind of magical ice. Some of the Dunmer from Solstheim say that it's similar to Stalhrim, but different."

"Different how?" Calia asked, in a way that said: _If you don't tell me everything right now, you're in for it._

"The ice is magical, but it doesn't radiate magicka. It seems as though it's self-contained. It's strengthened by the magicka, without giving off any. Myself and the others have never seen or heard of anything like this before."

"I have," Calia replied. She hadn't though, but it wouldn't do to appear ignorant before the Orc.

"Then you know how to get past it…?" The Orc asked, careful to manage his tone.

"Yes, of course," Calia responded hurriedly, "Now tell your colleagues to leave me alone with the door." She had absolutely no idea what she was going to do, but she knew she couldn't have the others seeing that.

The Orc went back down the corridor towards the ice door, and then returned past Calia with a few Imperials and a Dunmer. The Dunmer, a female, glanced at Calia with an odd look, then shook her head and continued along with her colleagues. Calia didn't care what the Dunmer girl thought. The concerns of a Dunmer was beneath her.

Calia started down the corridor, suddenly glad that there was a bend in it. _At least they can't see me stumped. What do I do, what do I do? This wall doesn't emanate magicka. Ok that makes things more difficult. If it gave of magicka, I could at least have used that excess to fuel my spells to a higher degree. What would my old teacher have done…?_

She was so lost in thought that she didn't realise that she had arrived, until she practically bumped into it. Broken from her trance, she inspected the ice. Then she felt something. Somehow this ice felt…wrong. Now she understood what the look on the Dunmer girls face had been. Worry and concern, both at the same time. But also another emotion. Fear. The ice may not have emanated any detectable magicka, but it certainly emanated fear.

After a few moments Calia, with some difficulty, put aside her feelings of fear and attempted to find some way through. Upon closer inspection, Calia could just about to see faint runes etched onto the surface of the ice. _What luck, she thought to herself happily. _Runes were tricky business. Most mages simply used the easiest ones, such as those that exploded with ice or fire. But some mages studied runes extensively, and Calia was one of them. What stood before her wasn't an impenetrable wall, but a complex puzzle, that needed to be dismantled in just the right way.

So she did just that, dismantled. It took her a few hours. At one point someone, Calia didn't know or care who, brought some food and water but she ignored it. Taking a break would just slow her down.

She could tell that she was making some progress when the ice started a slow gradual cracking process. She stopped working to see if the cracks would break up the ice for her, but as soon as she stopped, they stopped. When she continued, they continued. The more she worked the more that feeling of fear, and now dread, plagued her. It was as if the wall was simultaneously trying to help and hinder her. She knew, as would most, that the feelings were a glorified mage version of a '_turn back, terrible beastie ahead_' sign.

But Calia tried to block out the unwelcome feelings. _I will not be denied my prize, she thought to herself, because of some bad feelings. _

Eventually she tapped the last rune, and the cracks stopped spreading. Calia took a step back, unsure of whether that truly was the last one, or if she had missed something. The cracks were glowing with an ethereal blue light. She walked forwards now intent on finding out what she had missed, when all of a sudden the ethereal light pulsed, and the whole ice wall shattered, a powerful magical wind causing her to fly back down the corridor, and collide with the stone wall.

She stayed, slumped against the wall for a few minutes. Slowly she opened her eyes, expecting to see ice everywhere, but there was nothing, just a new doorway in the corridor where the wall had been. The ice had just disappeared like some cheap illusion.

Groggily Calia got to her feet and stumbled towards the door, and leaned against the iron doors, forcing them open with her weight. As soon as she entered the room, she was suddenly as awake and alert as she had ever been. This room was brimming with magicka, but not just any old magicka. This magicka had a purpose, it was containing something. Perhaps whatever was encased in the block of ice, sitting dead centre in the room. She surveyed the room a bit before moving ahead. It was a simple room, bare rock and ice, with four braziers surrounding the block of ice in the centre. The braziers were light with blue flame, causing the whole room to be bathed in an almost ethereal light.

As Calia walked towards the black of ice, she could feel the defensive magicka in the room part before her, as if it were water. Like the magicka she exuded and this were opposites, constantly opposing one another. The closer to the block she got, the more aggressive the defensive magicka got, until it no longer felt like water, but more like a crowd, that she had to force her way through, small step by small step.

It took 15 minutes to finally reach the block of ice, a journey that should have taken less than one under normal conditions. As Calia peered into the ice, she could just make out a black shape inside, roughly man sized. But that was it. She reached out to sweep away some of the frost that had formed on it, but when her hand touched the ice, she sensed that the magicka in the room disappeared. She recoiled and looked around. That should not have happened. Magicka was a force, an energy, and energy didn't just simply disappear.

A faint glow drew her attention back towards the ice block, and Calia saw a glowing handprint, _her _handprint, gently fade into the ice, cracks spreading from where it once was.

She took several steps back, just as the cracks reached the bottom. She had a terrible sense of foreboding, but she couldn't flee back down the corridor. She couldn't have the lesser races see her weak and afraid, it just wouldn't do. So she stayed.

The same ethereal blue light from the wall and braziers shone through the cracks in the ice and then pulsed. Once. Twice. Three times, at which point the ice just dissolved into a fine mist, obscuring the black shape from Calia's view.

A figure emerged from the mist. Clad in the darkest of armour, a sword of blackest night hanging by its waist, and a shield that seemed to absorb all light, it stepped towards her. Slow, purposeful, this creature did not make mistakes.

Calia was rooted in position, too terrified to move. The creature stood right in front of her.

"Your power is now…mine," it spoke in a quiet, yet threatening voice. It sounded raspy like Argonian, but closer to two pieces of metal being scrapped against one another. Emotionless, without a hint of an accent.

All those things crossed Calia's mind as her body was slowly drained of its magick and life force. Her body slumped to the floor, lifeless.

The black helmet lifted up at the sounds of life coming from down the corridor. The creature, powered by Calia's magick and life force, started down the corridor, drawing it's sword silently from the scabbard, frost forming on the black blade.


End file.
